Incomplete.
Seriously, who knows? Most of the players drafted are just figuring out where Pittsburgh is on the map. Until the current rookie camp, they probably hadn't seen a single page of an NFL playbook, and they don't have any clue of what they're in for when real training camp opens.
They have a lot to learn, and they have to translate those lessons into actions on field, competing against better players than they've ever seen. It's one thing to understand an assignment, another to execute it in a split-second in pressure situations.
Teams draft for talent and intelligence and hope they can make prospects into players. But they're never sure. There are first-round flops just as there are free agents who beat the odds and have great careers.
Mel Kiper gave the Steelers an A-minus for this year's draft on ESPN. That's encouraging, but Kiper is just projecting. So are the Steelers. You gather as much information as you can, you make picks, you work hard to teach them. Then you hope.
It will take at least two years to draw any reliable conclusions on the 2015 draft.
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--TAKE SOME TIME
Craig Patrick's final years as Penguins' GM were filled with dubious decisions, so it's easy to forget that he was one of then league's sharpest operators for a long time.
One of his unbreakable rules was he would take at least a week after a season ended before making any major decisions.
Whether the season was good or bad, Patrick wanted that time to distance himself from all the emotion so he could proceed with some sense of objectivity. He always made it clear he wouldn't speak publicly until he was sure he was ready.
The Penguins would have done well to borrow that practice this year. There was no urgency to announce that Jim Rutherford and Mike Johnston would return, yet the announcement was made as soon as the team was eliminated from the playoffs.
Bringing both back might be the correct decision. But there was certainly no rush to make it.
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--PATIENCE NEEDED
The Pirates are clearly scuffling and need to improve significantly if they're going to contend for the NL Central title.
But there's too much overreaction to temporary issues in a very long season.
Clint Hurdle, who has a knack for noting such things, pointed out the other day that in two weeks he'd gone from fielding questions about whether Jung Ho Kang should be in the minor leagues to being asked why Kang wasn't playing more often.
Jordy Mercer took a .186 average into Saturday's game. On this date last season, Mercer was batting .191. He finished at .255. Give it time.
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--STEAL AWAY
The Pirates have brought Omar Moreno back into the organization to tutor players on stealing bases.
Sounds like it should be a good idea, but is it? Moreno twice led the National League in stolen bases (71 in 1978 and 77 in '79) and had another year with 96 steals when he was not the leader.
But he also led the league three times in being caught stealing. Moreno succeeded on about 73 percent of his attempts. That put him at No. 252 in career stolen base success rate entering this season.
By comparison, Hall of Famer Rickey Henderson is at 80.7 percent.
Now that steroids are gone, there's more of an emphasis on running again. After all these years, maybe Moreno has a better grasp on which gambles are worth taking.
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--FORGIVABLE MISTAKE
You may remember that Jerry Meals made one of the most egregiously bad calls in the last decade of MLB.
Meals inexplicably blew an obvious call at the plate that cost the Pirates a 19th inning loss in Atlanta in 2011. It was one of the most notorious wrong calls since Don Denkinger missed one on the much bigger stage of the 1985 World Series. Meals' mistake fueled support for the replay policies that have been adopted.
Meals is in town this weekend, working the current series against the Cardinals. He's a crew chief now.
In some lines of work, you'd be in trouble for that kind of error. In baseball, it's no barrier to promotion.
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--HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY
The ones who didn't throw away the baseball cards are extra special.
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